I was wondering what syntax highlighter and sitemap generation plugin you are using, for example to show the code in Java, HTML etc; The problem with my syntax highlighter is that it highlights nearly every word creating a confusing array of colours!!. Plus if the code is too large the colours alone crash my wordpress page. Also crayon syntax highlighter is corrupted when you post a page and try to edit it again.

Hi Derek great work, I like your thinking and your style! I think it may be helpful if you could create a tutorial on hand coding a simple PHP shopping cart built from the ground up, that could ideally send the order through by email and contain categories and individual items. Perhaps it could integrate with Paypal or Google checkout. I know I often find myself using third party shopping carts and wish I had my own that I could reuse the code for different projects.

Fantastic work. Great Videos. Just love them. Could you please make some video tutorial on various open source build and project management, and also continuous integration server. For example, tutorials on Apache ANT, Apache Maven,Jenkins and Hudson etc would be greatly appreciated.

You inspired me to start developing themes. Can you make a tutorial for photoshop or illustrator (or point me if you already done) for creating web layouts? Except artisteer ( very useful tool by the way).
Thank you

I sort of covered that in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghnrxgk-jCc As I’m guessing you saw, I normally draw everything on paper. I then just use illustrator to make sure I get the lengths / heights of every element on my page. That just comes down to drawing boxes. I did a bunch of tutorials on how to use Illustrator. Here they are Illustrator CS5 Tutorials.

I think what you are asking is how to layout a page? Are you looking for a tutorial on composition? I’ve never done that, but it sounds like an interesting tutorial?

You make Jeffery Way look like he’s intoxicated… 😀
if you take requests, or have a good bookmark, a tut to input webform data from QR2 & 1 would be greatly appreciated… hard to find someone with a no non-sense approach like you 🙂
Thanks for the work,
Greg

Hi Derek! Was wondering if you could give me directions (or online tutorial sources) on how to set up a template for blogger. I can make html templates, but with blogger there are some details to be considered.
Thank you again

OK, I can’t stand IE. I noticed that on your http://www.newthinktank.com website it works for both IE and Chrome. How in the world did you do that, when I fix something for IE it messes up something on Chrome.

The theme I actually use is from Elegant Themes. I do have a bunch of WordPress tutorials though that are cross browser here WordPress How To. There is about 80 tutorials just on WordPress. I hope they help

Most everyone of my WordPress tutorials are on this page WordPress How To. I never take down tutorials. On occasion I’ve been forced to take down tutorials. My Objective C tutorial is an example of that

Yes, I came looking for basic information about shortcodes (WP) because of something I’ve gotten to label: “Never Let Your Programmer Write the Manual”. Here’s an example from the “documentation” for a plugin called Post-From-Site which is a pretty good little text editor (less than TinyMCE) that let’s one post without going to the Dashboard.

” …

1. Unzip pfs.zip
1. Upload all files to the /wp-content/plugins/post-from-site directory
1. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

= Use your choice of include: =
1. Add a widget in the [Widgets section](http://codex.wordpress.org/Appearance_Widgets_Screen)
2. Add a shortcode to a page/post/CPT
* Post From Site’s basic shortcode is [post-from-site]. It has three options: popup defines whether the form will show on the site, or only after clicking a link (defaults to false, not a popup). link defines that link’s text (defaults to ‘quick post’). cat restricts the post to a specific category (defaults to none).
3. Add PHP code to your template files.
* form(); ?> will output the form. You can pass the same variables as in the shortcode.

== Changelog ==
= 3.0.1 =

… ”

We note first that the 3 steps of installation are actually all labelled ‘1’ which is a bad sign. Then we get into using the shortcode and it says to use ‘[post-from-site]’, (I guess that’s the shortcode) and 3 ‘options’. No syntax example is given – I’m just supposed to know that? Where do I put these options? Do they go inside quotes, parenthesis, brackets, braces? Here we’re dealing with code where every jot and tittle can screw it up, but not a clue is given.

And to make matters worse, in section 3, the PHP bit, what above was ‘options’ has now morphed into ‘variables’? And again, just where in my template files am I supposed to add this code? I haven’t a clue. I can’t believe it doesn’t matter…

Well I’ve found this form of “documentation” is rampant in the WP community. The developers come are anything from highly devoted to “Meh, it may work – I’m going to the beach”, and everything in between.

So, out of desperation I tried to find a tutorial about shortcodes. I do find the whole programming thing interesting, but not really interesting enough to learn. It would take years and I just want to get this simple site up and running so I can edit sound. By far the biggest problem I really have is not a little editor for my clients (so I can keep them out of Dashboard) but to set privileges so no client can see another client’s materials. Posts and media library must be free of ‘cross-pollination’.

That led me to User Access Manager which works well except for the media library bit so I put in Role Scoper, but now the two are working at cross-purposes. Scoper cleaned up the library issue but now UAM isn’t right and then we get back into Scoper and the docs issue of a programmer writing the docs. (Don’t even get me started on a German programmer. Just layer the programmer docs with bad English…)

The Role Scoper dude sound like a good guy and I might offer to help him write his docs, but then I look at the bigger picture and want to spend the little time I have to help the most people possible and WordPress themselves is looking for people to volunteer to help writing their docs, which suck too!

Oh, yeah, I was asking a question. Regarding the shortcode for “post-from-site” ( http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/post-from-site/ ) maybe you could have quick looky and tell me how to put that into a page so my upcoming clients can post w/ it. I want to put it on my ‘posts page’, preferably at the top, so they won’t be put off by the Dashboard. Othewise I’ll have to make a tutorial of my own showing them how to post and upload media. And another thing. Her little editor allows one to upload images but not audio (which is what I need) and I thought I’d look at the code to see if I could ‘hack’ it, but it looks like the ‘$’ values are coming from somewhere else. If I can’t figure out some shortcodes I sure can’t figure out that one. *sigh*.

Anyway, can you help me get the shortcode working so I can paste that on a page? I put it in as a widget, but then it shows up everywhere (twenty eleven footer) and I just want it on one page.

BTW, what the world really needs is a popup TinyMCE that can be put about anywhere.

I looked over the plugin and for now I’d say using it could quite possibly be a very bad idea. I need to see how the security works, if there is any 🙂

It is almost always a bad idea to allow anyone to create posts on your site. I don’t think WordPress has perfected the ability to make a forum type site. For instance, without a iron clad firewall my site would be taken down every day by hackers. The firewall is the only thing keeping them out. If you allow people to post on your site without knowing who they are that is going to invite trouble.

I’ll look for a plugin that strips away all but the essentials from WordPress. You can click on the Screen Options tab and eliminate everything but Quickpress. I’m not sure if you knew that.

You also might want to think about whether it would be a good idea to allow users who are confused by posting to even get on the site? I’ve had clients completely destroy their own sites by accidentially shutting down security features. That is a lot of fun 🙂

Thanks for your reply. My idea for a site is not something that needs a great deal of security. Actually almost none. Simply the user will upload a file and some instructions (maybe multiple files) and I will do something to them and post the results for them to retrieve. Somewhere in here I make some money for my services. At this point I have zero $ to put into it and foresee fewer than 50 users/clients max. If it really takes off then I’ll have to get a real CMS going.

On the shortcode end I got another shortcode plugin to work, at least on a post. It seams a better version, this one called “Front-End-Upload”, but it too won’t take an audio file, which is what I need. I’m about to drop him a line about it.

If you have any ideas about how I could build a (nearly) free site to handle uploads and downloads, I’d like to hear about it.

The current design is pretty simple. Just 5 or so menus with instructions and the last menu goes to the “Client Area” where the client sees a page with only their stuff on it. Their posts and my responses. They can send files but only retrieve them through my posts. The clients never see each other’s posts or files or nothing. Their capabilities are very limited, retty much to sending files and reading posts. They can’t make pages, see the library (hence the plugin), change settings or anything.

I’m putting right up front that if they want to send sensitive stuff (trade secrets, etc) that they probably should do it in house.

I’d watch out for the whole security thing. If a hacker breaks in they’ll easily steal all of your traffic, post links everywhere and start uploading bad stuff to your server. By bad stuff I mean pirated movies, applications and stuff that is even more illegal than that. ( My site gets attacked hundreds of times a day! )

If you need to make money, make it the way I do with online stores. I even have an entire tutorial with a working theme here Make an Online Store. Everything is free to use. At worst you’ll need to spend $40 if you need to ship with Fedex, but UPS and USPS is free.

The hardest part is finding suppliers that have good prices and will drop ship low quantities. To find them just look for in demand products with high markups and then hunt for those suppliers online. You can just call them with a short list of products you want and the preferred prices. That’s it.

It takes awhile to find suppliers in the beginning, but it is definitely worth the effort. Think boring products that governments, school, universities, etc. buy a ton of.

Excellent site, I congratulate you.
The videos and how you explain things is so easy to understand.
I ask how do I subscribe to the site in order to reach my email updates? and could you create a tutorial that explains how to create an advanced search that includes author, category, dates, etc? agardecería as much as you’ve looked everywhere and can not find anything about it.

Hi,derek,I know I’ve wrote this before but I’m not sure you saw it:if you know about covert hypnosis(conversational,eriksonian hypnosis) can you please write on how to use it?I’m dying to know how to master it!Thanks 🙂

Derek the teaching u provide is serious!!! This is what they should be teaching at higher institutions. May God Bless for sharing your knowledge. Thank u so much for real.And foremost what I really like is the fact that u have thousands of people asking questions and u always reply asap. Keep it up 🙂

Great job, I watched your design pattern tutorials and they are extremely helpful. If you have time, please make c++ tutorials since its so large complicated language and there is a need of advanced-level tutorials.
waiting for your next tutorials patiently.

Great job, I watched your design pattern tutorials and they are extremely helpful. If you have time, please make c++ tutorials since its so large complicated language and there is a need of advanced-level tutorials.
waiting for your next tutorials patiently.

Im amazed at the amount of work you’ve put into these tutorials, reading android tutorial atm, already read UML. Would love to see a Ruby tutorial when you have the time. Thank you for the great contribution you are doing to our knowledge

Thank you Derek so much for what you have contributed to teaching and learning.
I hope people recognize the value you bring to the CS community.
I took my BA & MSc in CS almost 30 years ago and started learning programming in 1978 🙂 …
In the Mid – to late 90s, I slowly lost all my programming skills (: … thank God I learned Smalltalk in the late 80s.
I also learned a lot of other languages that are like old rock songs — PL/1, ALGOL W, Pascal, FORTRAN, 6502 assembler, System/360 assembler, Applesoft Basic 🙂 and C before it had objects 🙂 … so I still have the foundation somewhere in my brain (I hope) …
I decided this year at 55 to step back into programming as a good way to exercise my mind and help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s (which sadly recently took my mom)… in my reading up on the disease, research suggests that Mental exercise can help prevent it… and programming is great mental exercise!! as you know 🙂

So in the beginning of August 2013, I asked some kids in their 20s what they were programming games with and a few suggested Python. So I decided to start learning it on my MacBook Air… I ordered a bunch of books — as old guys do 🙂 — and then I looked around on the Internet and found your tutorials on Python. They are wonderful!!!
I went through 1 – 16 … The hardest part was getting the development environment Eclipse, BeautifulSoup etc… configured and remembering UNIX commands 🙂 … this is the Alzheimer’s part! I actually remember most of the programming concepts…
The Website Scraping was great fun!

The last few days I have struggled trying to configure Pygame to work with Eclipse so I can start to build a game. I went over sites like this http://www.pygame.org/wiki/MacLionCompile
but they are so confusing and not as clear as you… and i can’t get it to work…
I love Eclipse and I am just starting to get confident in this environment and programming again.

I realize this is a lot to ask you to help me with… and I know you are really busy with other tutorials, so I do understand why you can’t make a tutorial on this, i.e., Part 19 of Python with Pygame 🙂 …
but maybe you could point me in the right direction or to someone who could help me?
thank you for all you have done.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. It sounds like you have had an amazing journey. I’m sorry to hear about your Mom. I can’t imagine what that would be like. I also agree that Alzheimers can be fought off by keeping your mind active. I was involved in a research study on that topic years ago.

As per your problem, I think the installation documented here on StackOverflow is very solid. If that doesn’t work for you, I will do a tutorial on setting up PyGame.

Tell me if you need me to do that. It won’t be that hard. I just need to do it for Macs and Windows or people will throw a fit.

This is the forum Website for the book
nventwithpython.com
It looks like a good book; if I could get pygame running 🙂 — But the videos on the site are really lacking 🙂

The book makes everything sound easy using IDLE but I can’t even get that to work pygame; nevertheless with Eclipse 🙂

I think the problem is OS 10.8.4 and my MacBook Air? I am missing some critical component.

Derek there is no rush to make a tutorial and I really appreciate what you have contributed ; I am just playing/learning and I am sure you have a lot of students waiting for your tutorials on C.
I emailed a CS professor I know and she has a grad student looking at the problem 🙂 but you know grad students 🙂
if i get something working i will let you know… either way i will be in touch soon.
please take care
and thank you
mike

I looked into Pygame, which I haven’t used for some time. You are right that it isn’t easy to install. That really is frustrating. I’m starting to think there may be no way to get this to work on OSX 10.8. If you look here you’ll see there is no 10.8 version of Pygame http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml

I have tried a bunch of things, but it constantly fails to install. I haven’t found a fix and I have looked everywhere that I can think of. There are compatibility issues that I can’t resolve. I’ll tell you if I can get it to work, but it doesn’t look good, or at the very least it doesn’t look easy.

Sorry I couldn’t find a solution. If you want to make games you may find that Java is the way to go. I obviously love the language because I have been doing tutorials on pretty much only Java for the last 2 years 🙂

I’ve had a brief look at many of your programming video’s – certainly looks comprehensive.

I little prior programming knowledge apart from BASIC on my ZX spectrum about 20 years ago and more recently a bit of Visual Basic.

It seems your videos cover most of the building blocks. If my eventual goal is to do Android development, in what order would you recommend I dig in to your videos? My thoughts were:
1. UML
2. Object Oriented Design
3. Java
4. Design Patterns
5. Android

Basically everything was made in this order, but you could watch them in any order : Java, Design Patterns, UML, Object Oriented Design, Refactoring, Algorithms.

Just understand that the java tutorial would have used UML and OOD, if I could have trusted that people had seen them. Some times it is hard to make a tutorial if I have to dumb everything down. I hope that makes sense.

Derek!
I (think) I sent you an email, but not sure of the address, so perhaps not.

I would love to use the example shown in your Python Tutorial #17, (chat server), but have an application where I don’t always want to ‘broadcast’ to everyone, but only the originator. Can you tell me how to modify your example to reply to the originator only? I DO want to use ‘broadcast to all’ in some instances.

Yes I only briefly covered J2EE topics because I think they deserve their own tutorial. For now the community decided they wanted me to cover Android over J2EE topics. Very soon I will start covering J2EE as well as Android at the same time. Sorry it is taking so long, but I tend to over cover rather then under cover topics.

Yes I tend to cover topics over and over until I’m very sure that everyone gets the idea. I know pretty much nobody else does this. I basically approach making videos that satisfy those people that are very determined to learn a topic. I do my best to help those people even if my videos may not be exciting and get a bunch of views. I’m glad you like them 🙂

I just started watching your videos on nlp on youtube, and I gotta say you are awesome, I wish I found your stuff a lot earlier, anyways… I would like to thank you very much for the information you have gathered over the years I can not thank you enough, is there a way I can contact you, other than blog posts?
I wish you a great week, a great year, a great life, hahaha, I’m crazy! ok take care.

You’re very welcome 🙂 The easiest way to get ahold of me is through Google+, or a YouTube PM if you want me to answer anything that you don’t want in the public. I get thousands of emails a day so it is hard for me to track all of them.

Mr. Banas – yes I have enjoyed many of your videos, and am sure you are making one at this moment. I write as others have about a direct email address. The purpose is to share what might spark an intellectual interest, but if to leave a link would be indirectly promoting something on your website. I believe firmly though that it could attract your thoughts – Sincerely Yours, Orion Karl Daley

Hi Orion, I have given my email to so many people that I get thousands of emails now. The best way to send me a private message is to send it either through Google Plus or through a YouTube PM. That way I’ll definitely see it.

Hi Derek,
I’m somewhat puzzled by your new Howto Make Android Apps video tutorials. Didn’t you have a series similar to these before when you introduced Android dev using App inventor in January?
It just seems like a deja vu, although this series appears to cover much more in-depth of the components.
Also, I’m not finding Android related material on this page, what am I missing?

Hi Derek,
I have watched about 200 of your videos in the past week or so. I am very impressed and thankful. I don’t know of anyone else who gives practical, dense, tutorials which actually make a working product. Please don’t change your video format. I watch your videos at double speed on youtube, but would like to watch them faster. Can you post some at double speed, so that I can speed them up more? This helps especially for review. Can I download all your code from one area, without multiple downloads? Would you consider a DOM model cheat sheet chart for each video series, covering the material shown in the videos, as an aid to memory and use? Thanks again, Peter.

Hi Peter, I’m very happy that you are enjoying the videos that much. Sorry, but It would take me a very long time to render videos at an increased speed. It takes my computer about 4 hours to render each one. Sorry I couldn’t help with that request.

Thanks a lot Derek. All the tutorials and videos are really great.
reached your site while searching for tutorials on design patterns and found that every thing is just perfect… command pattern was a nightmare for me before going through your videos… Thanks again